Prudence sat back up and pretended to salute. “I swear that I shall do my very best to behave for Miss Dexter. She is pleasant enough. I can give her at least a month to win me over before I endeavor to be rid of her.”
“Thank you,” Isolde said with a smile, smoothing her hands down the front of her skirts, thinking she quite liked the duck-egg blue day dress after all.
And not a moment too soon, as the girls’ mother shouted up the stairs, “The carriage is waiting, Isolde! As is Edmund! Pleasedohurry yourself, dear!” There was a veiled threat in that last word that made Isolde chuckle to herself, indulging in a sliver of her bygone defiance.
“IfIdid not know any better, I would say you were deliberately keeping Edmund waiting,” Prudence said slyly, propping herself up on her elbows as she raised another far too perceptive eyebrow. “Not stowing any strawberry tarts into your reticule, I hope. Actually… please do, and then tell me all about it!”
Teresa sighed wearily. “You should go, Isolde, before Prudie decides to stowherselfinto the back of the carriage.”
“Not a terrible idea,” Prudence said, putting a healthy dose of fear into Isolde’s footsteps as she grabbed her reticule and hurried from the room. The last thing the garden party needed was Prudence running amok, and shewouldstow away if she thought she could get away with it.
“Coming, Mama!” Isolde called, hoping Edmund was suitably vexed by the delay. It would serve him right for acting superior and judgmental since her walk in the park with Lord Spofforth, and with the callers she had welcomed since.
“It is a fine day for it, is it not?” Julianna sighed contentedly, turning her face up to the hazy sunshine and closing her eyes, likeshewas the debutante and not the mother of one. “Breathe in that fresh air, Isolde. What a delight it is to be out of the city for a short while.”
Edmund discreetly inhaled a breath of the countryside air, perfumed with the earthy-sweet scent of cut grass, balsam notes from the cedar trees that encircled Lord and Lady Montrose’s manor, and the heady aroma of roses, coming from the charming bushes that climbed across the house’s front porch. It smelled like home, a long time ago.
He glanced at Isolde, who appeared to be enjoying the same perfumed air, her eyes closing, an unbridled joy falling across her face as her chest rose and fell with her deep breaths. For reasons unknown, he could not stop watching her, alarmingly enchanted by that peace upon her face. Envious, even.
“You know, this would be a marvelous occasion to announce an engagement,” Julianna said suddenly, snapping Edmund out of his trance. “Now, I am not one to steal another’s thunder and, yes, this is Lord and Lady Montrose’s gathering, but I doubt they would mind. Indeed, they might appreciate their fine residence being named in the papers along with the happy news.”
Edmund squinted at Julianna, wondering if he had missed something. “Who is set to be engaged?”
“No one,” Julianna replied with a wave of her hand, “but I just thought… Well, if I am to be honest, I think the two of you would make a rather lovely couple. You would not need to suffer the rigmarole of the marriage market, Isolde, and I know Vincent would be pleased, Edmund.”
Edmund recoiled as if she had waved a saber at him instead, uncertain of whether to grimace or laugh. Moreover, he had to wonder if Julianna had imbibed something more than tea with her breakfast, for the notion was utter madness. She knew, as well as he and Isolde, that such a match was akin to throwing two lions into a cage and praying they would not kill each other.
“Mama, I told you it was too hot in the carriage,” Isolde chimed in, her tone colored with an acerbic hue. “It has boiled your mind.”
Julianna threw up her hands in mock surrender. “It was only a suggestion. You see, I had forgotten how difficult this time can be in a young lady’s life. Watching you over the past few days, seeing how it is exhausted you, I merely thought you might forgoit altogether and wed someone you at least know well. There is merit in that.”
“And there is merit in a love match,” Isolde replied curtly. “For years you have drummed that into my head, insisting that I should be happy with a man I truly love, and who truly loves me in return. How can you give up after a few days? Fortunately, I have more mettle than you, Mama. I am not in the least bit exhausted—quite the opposite, in fact.”
Edmund’s forehead began to furrow into a frown, but he caught it before it could become an expression of concern, disciplining it back into blankness. He had not forgotten that Isolde had invited Lord Spofforth to the garden party and realized with a strange unease in his chest thatthatwas likely why she had dressed so prettily.
Her dark blonde hair, the color of fresh honey catching summer sunlight, had been braided and fashioned into a bun, studded with forget-me-nots. Her plump cheeks were rosy, complementing her fair complexion, and the shade of her lips was a little darker than usual, if he was not mistaken.
All of that for the benefit of a most unworthy man.
“It is an important moment in a society lady’s life,” Edmund said drily. “Lady Isolde is capable of choosing well; I am sure.”
Isolde flashed him a look as if waiting for his next insult, but he said nothing, for he had nothing more to say. By the end of the garden party, she would see that he was right—that LordSpofforth would never be worthy of her, and that her judgment was not as keen as she thought it was.
Ofthat, he was sure.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lady Isolde is capable of choosing well; I am sure.Isolde turned Edmund’s undoubtedly sarcastic words over and over in her mind. Her mouth moved bitterly to mutter out the sentiment as she walked around the side of Lord and Lady Montrose’s manor. Toward the music that drifted across the serene estate, two hours’ ride from London. Toward revelry and joy and distraction and discovering if Lord Spofforthwasthe man she had been dreaming of.
She was so busy simmering over Edmund’s snide remark that she did not notice the small group who were loitering around the corner of the manor until she had all but knocked into them.
“Goodness, I am so very sorry!” she gasped, as a hand shot out to steady her, though she had already regained her balance. “I did not see you there.”
Following the hand up to a familiar face, she gasped again, her irritation with Edmund draining away, replaced with a nervous delight.
“I should have known you were approaching by the sound of heavenly bells that were chiming in my head, heralding the appearance of an angel,” Lord Spofforth said with a warm smile.
There were two other gentlemen and a lady, perhaps a couple of years older than Isolde, in the group. They, too, smiled at her with a friendly ease, though Isolde kept glancing at the young lady, wondering which of the two gentlemen she was married to. After all, if she was unwed, she should not have been alone with the opposite sex.
